Problems with translation

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#207625

Tobias Hlatky
Participant

Hello dear support team,

I am using WPML and WPDM together. Currently, I have the following situation:

We have created thousands of downloads in German with great effort. Now we want to make these available in English as well (and later also in French and Spanish), including an English description. Since these are mostly drawings and CAD files, the files themselves do not need to be translated. Additionally, we use the shortcode of the “file container” on the product pages.

However, when I translate these downloads (via automatic translation, duplication, etc.), the system unfortunately creates a new download container for e.g. “English.” Annoyingly, not only does the shortcode change (meaning we would have to edit all products), but the container also loses the link to the uploaded file and the icon.

This would mean we would have to manually revise all multilingual downloads over several days. Isn’t there a way to retain the same container with its shortcode and linked file, and only translate the description?

We truly hope you can help us. Thank you in advance!

#207626

Tahasin
Moderator

Hello, Tobias

I hope you are doing well and thanks for reaching out.

Just to clarify, you have thousands of downloads created in German, and when translating them into English, the shortcode changes, correct? Also, could you please explain what you mean by the ‘file container’ or share the exact shortcode you’re using?

Please check and let me know.

Regards

#207685

Tobias Hlatky
Participant

Hello Tahasin,

Thanks for your reply – let me clarify the issue in more detail.

We have created thousands of downloads in German using WP Download Manager (WPDM). On our product pages, we embed these using shortcodes like:

bash
Kopieren
Bearbeiten
[wpdm_package id="78571"]
Now we want to make these downloads available in English, French, Spanish, etc. – but only the description should be translated. The file itself stays the same, since it’s usually a CAD file or technical document.

When we translate a download using WPML (by duplication or automatic translation), the following happens:

🔴 The core problems:
A new download post is created, with a new package ID
→ This breaks our shortcodes on the product pages.

The new post does not retain the file, icon, or other settings
→ We would have to reconfigure each translated download manually.

✅ What we want:
We want to reuse the same download post / container (with the original ID, file, and icon) across languages – and only translate the text fields (title, description, etc.).

📌 Example:
The plugin currently generates two separate IDs for the same file:

German download:
138798_CAD.stp → [wpdm_package id='78571']

English download:
138798_CAD.stp → [wpdm_package id='78731']

This creates two independent posts, which means we lose the file reference in the translated version. That’s exactly what we want to avoid.

Can you please let us know if there is a way to:

Keep one single download package per file

Translate only the texts, not the technical settings or file links

Retain the same shortcode across all languages

Thank you very much for your support!

Best regards,
Tobias

#207687

Tahasin
Moderator

This behavior is due to how the WPML add-on currently manages translations, it treats each translated version as a completely separate package. Could you please contact WPML support? They will be able to pinpoint the issue easily.

#207689

Tobias Hlatky
Participant

Hello Tahasin,

Thanks for the clarification.

I will reach out to the WPML support team to check if they have a possible solution. However, since I suspect there may not be a suitable option from their side, I wanted to ask:

Is there perhaps a plugin or extension that is compatible with WP Download Manager, and can work alongside WPML, focusing only on translating the textual content (e.g. title, description, excerpt) of the download – without creating new package IDs or breaking the file and icon associations?

Could you kindly recommend any solution or plugin that is known to work well specifically with WPDM in multilingual environments?

This would really help us avoid extensive manual work across thousands of downloads.

Thanks again for your support!

Best regards,
Tobias

#207690

Tahasin
Moderator

You can try using Loco Translate plugin as an alternative for translating only the text fields. However, please note that I’m not entirely sure how well it will work alongside WPML.
I would recommend testing it on your staging site first to ensure compatibility and avoid any unexpected issues on your live site.

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